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UK LEGAL COMMENT


Gambling Commission figures show declining rates of gamblers at risk


Northridge Law’s Melanie Ellis looks at the Gambling Commission’s recent problem gambling survey


T Stepmars/Wikimedia Commons 22 MARCH 2021


he Gambling Commission has recently published data from its latest problem gambling survey, covering the year to December 2020. It is difficult to compare 2020 to any other year, of course the data will


reflect significant changes to gambling behaviour due to land-based premises being closed for much of the year. It is worth noting that this is also the first full year of data since the introduction of the stake reduction on FOBT machines, on 1 April 2019.


The Gamblers, William Blamire Young Problem gambling rates are down


For me, the key takeaway from this data is that the pandemic lockdowns do not seem to have led to any increase in problem gambling behaviour. In fact, problem gambling rates appear to be falling, with the overall rate at 0.3%, compared to 0.6% last year. This figure should be treated with caution, though, as it is not a statistically significant reduction. The proportion of the population at low risk from gambling related harm has shown a reduction that is statistically significant (from 2.7% down to 2%) and the numbers of those at medium risk also reduced slightly. As commentators on problem gambling levels love to do, I will put these numbers into the context of the overall British population: • In 2019, 400,000 people were problem gamblers. In 2020, there were 200,000 problem gamblers.


• In 2019, 2.6m people were at risk (low or medium) or experiencing gambling related harm. In 2020, 1.9m people were at risk. In reality, it is unlikely that a total of 900,000 who


were at risk from or experiencing problem gambling in 2019 are fine a year later. This highlights the inaccuracies in extrapolating from the Commission’s sample size of 4,000 to the general population, although the Commission has not shied away from doing that in the past – it was a frequent feature of Commission CEO Neil McArthur’s keynote speeches at its annual “Raising Standards” conferences. Unfortunately, the statistics give little insight into the likely reasons for the reductions. Problem gambling rates


Andrey Popov/Adobe Stock


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